Laurie Klein, Scribe

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Oh Dear

by Laurie Klein 27 Chiming In

Oh, dear Author of All,
here is my page.

These spontaneous words of prayer anchor me. I sync them with each inhale and exhale as Dreamer and I drive into town. We’re headed for my beloved mentor’s home. She’s 95. For nearly 40 years she has guided me in the ever-compelling, never-mastered art of reading aloud. Shared love of the craft increases our love for words and for each other.

Today will be golden. I’ve written a tandem script for an ongoing audio program that Dreamer and I produce. She’ll give voice to Sonnet 73, by Shakespeare, in response to Sonnet 18, read by yours truly.

I’m so jazzed!

We unload recording equipment, then ring the bell. Oh dear. Turns out she’s leaving for an appointment: a schedule snafu.

We book a new date, then climb into our car — which won’t start. Despite countless attempts. She waves goodbye as we pull out the manual. Next, we try the gear shift override. Multiple times.

Prayer seemingly budges nothing, including the locked steering wheel.

Happy are those with cellphones and insurance. Alas, our towing option is invalid. More calls. Various chains of command. The sky darkens. Flurries commence. Seeking the helpful, we feel less and less hopeful.

Another hour passes. Snow falls harder, and cold seeps through the car and our clothing. We feel powerless.

Finally, a tow truck is promised—sometime within the next hour. We’re hungry. Frustrated. Chilled. A long way from home.

We need, ahem, certain facilities. Swallowing pride, I knock on a neighbor’s door, brush snow from my shoulders. Considering the latest pandemic protocols, will anyone answer? Who opens the door to a stranger these days?

The homeowner not only ushers us in, she offers both bathrooms. Then bottles of water. Or would we prefer soda? Coffee or tea?

“Please,” she says, “Sit. Wait inside where it’s warm. Oh dear, you’re shivering. Blanket?”

She even proposes various snacks.

I recall my earlier prayer, that God would author my day. Taken in, sheltered, cushioned and cared for, I am embarrassed by her spontaneous kindness. She is both stable and manger, an opened door amid the storm.

Today’s fleeting brush with Eternity.

In the fourth century, St. Jerome wrote, “Blessed are they who possess Bethlehem in their hearts and in whose hearts, Christ is born daily.”

Here’s to welcomes—those we give and those we receive—and to room being made, again and again, within the unexpected wayside inns of our common hours.

Emmanuel, you come. You beckon. You shelter us with nourishing care. Oh dear God, thank you. May we do likewise, amen.

Epilogue: The tow truck guy knew a trick. Under his capable hands the engine kicked over. Having parked on a slope, I’d cranked the front wheels toward the curb. More strength on my part would have loosed the steering, allowing ignition.

But we would have missed meeting a neighborhood saint.

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Dear friends, in whatever ways you feel stalled or stranded this season, we wish you kindly strangers, revels and reverence, mercies and mirth and healing hope.

Oh dear


Image by Wolfgang Krzemien from Pixabay

 

Filed Under: Immersions Tagged With: authorship, eternity, hospitality, neighborhood saint, prayer, snafu, tow truck, welcome December 13, 2021

Shelf Life: First Edition

by Laurie Klein 20 Chiming In

I am 10 years old. Floor to ceiling, three walls of open windows beckon me. The sun room seems to pulse, summer breezes stirring up dust motes suspended in sunlight.

Angled toward the small lake beyond, the yearning silence of one grand piano.

Shelf Life, a memory

No one notices me inch away as the realtor ushers my family upstairs, their voices receding.

I close the wall of French doors behind me. I’ve never seen glazed terracotta floor tiles. I slip off my Keds.

For now, I own this echoing chamber.

I ease the bench away from the keyboard. Sink onto the padded surface. Fold back the long, hinged lid: 88 keys. Ivory. Ebony. A playground in B&W.

One stocking foot stretches toward the sustain pedal.

Breath: held. Released.

Shelf Life, Edition One

No “Chopsticks” for me today, no percussive “Night and Day”—this moment calls for arpeggios, and because I didn’t ask anyone’s permission, pianissimo . . .

What half-way musical kid wouldn’t imagine the sold-out concert hall? And who on a summer’s day could lift hand over hand across ivories in brimming light and resist exerting a faster, firmer, more confident touch?

Notes blend like the half-furled petals of color on a pinwheel, spinning the spectrum into ethereal white. Joy effervesces. Time melts . . .

They come to find me, of course. Scolding a little.

***

To this day, I can summon the timeless shimmer of those moments alone at the keys.

If author Frederick Buechner is correct, eternity is neither endless time nor the opposite of time as we experience it. Like that spinning pinwheel that reduces colors to essential white, eternity is the essence of time.

Beyond fathoming. Ever available.

I seldom welcome the extended shelf life of memory when wrenching episodes resurface. They do, however, usually offer an invitation toward further healing.

It’s those replayed moments my soul glimpses God’s abiding presence that rejuvenate and nourish me. The opened door, the readied larder of the soul.

***

In these days of restricted access to people and places, is there a scene from your earlier life—perhaps still throbbing with magic and possibility—that might freshly nurture or inspire you? Perhaps it will awaken a shelved dream you might now have the time to explore.

  • Your high school aha at the microscope
  • That winning Little League swing for the fences
  • A thorny equation, solved
  • You, reassembling your dad’s radio—no leftover parts
  • Mixing drops from all your mother’s perfumes for that unforgettable gift on Mother’s Day

I hope you’ll consider inviting me in . . .

***

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“God, as Isaiah says (57:15), ‘inhabiteth eternity,’ but stands with one foot in time. The part of time where he stands most particularly is Christ, and thus in Christ we catch a glimpse of what eternity is all about, what God is all about, and what we ourselves are all about too.”   —Buechner, Wishful Thinking

Photos: Ebuen Clemente Jr on Unsplash and Clark Young on Unsplash.

You might also enjoy Appointment with Delight (click here)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Immersions Tagged With: arpeggios, eternity, grand piano, larder, memory, shelf life, timelessness April 3, 2020

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Hi, I’m Laurie.

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